Watercooling PC... Around $650 in parts Edit= $800

[Balubish]

Hi! When I built my PC last year I bought a Corsair H80i. Im really happy with it. But I have oveclocked alot and its only a 120mmX1 radiator.
So Im planning to start a build cause I will get some tax money back this year and come up with these parts.

2pcs 62368 Alphacool 13/10 (10x1,5mm) compression fitting 90° revolvable G1/4 - Deep Black 6,82 EUR
1pcs 59306 Alphacool tube AlphaTube HF 13/10 (3/8"ID) - clear 3m (9,8ft) Retailbox 9,30 EUR
1pcs 49091 Alphacool VPP655 - G1/4 IG complete med D5 HF Top 98,73 EUR
1pcs 35437 Bundle Alphacool NexXxoS Monsta 240mm "High Performance" mit 2x Noiseblocker NB-eLoop B12-3 Bionic 1900U/min 144,95 EUR
1pcs 30009 Korrosionsschutz AntiCorro-Fluid 50ml 4,72 EUR
1pcs 30181 Mayhems Dye Deep Blue 10ml 7,34 EUR
1pcs 68164 Phobya 2 Wege Kugelhahn G1/4 - gerändelt - Black Nickel 7,34 EUR
1pcs 45153 Phobya Balancer 250 svart nickel 31,50 EUR
1pcs 89055 Revoltec Kaltlicht Kathode 10cm Twin-Set - Blau Rev. 2 9,23 EUR
1pcs 89057 Revoltec Kaltlicht Kathode 10cm Twin-Set - UV Rev. 2 9,23 EUR
8pcs 62544 Swiftech 13/10 (1/2" x 3/8") compression fitting Lok-Seal G1/4 - black 3,97 EUR
2pcs 30033 Ultra Pure vatten 1000ml 4,93 EUR
1pcs 10402 XSPC RayStorm CPU Intel 775/1366/1156 68,27 EUR

Total around $620, yeah its alot :/ But I have choosen a really good radiator that probably work for atleast 10 years or more. Have no clue about lifespan but it's all copper.
And the plan are to add after that maybe once a month motherboard blocks and also GPU block. Both cost about $165 each. So not to come up too $1000 bucks at once for a frikkin waterloop I plan to do it this way so not all my tax return money gets spent at once.

So If anyone here have built a custom PC watercooling loop before is this good part setup?

[Maringue]

Have no clue about lifespan but it's all copper.

Use deionized or distilled water, it will make your radiator last much, much longer. It's made out of copper because copper is awesome at conducting, well, anything. But heat is what they care about here. But the copper is also why you want to use deionized/distilled water because tap water will cause corrosion inside the radiator after a while.

And as a fun fact, ultra pure distilled/deionized water does not conduct electricity.

[Balubish]

Have no clue about lifespan but it's all copper.

Use deionized or distilled water, it will make your radiator last much, much longer. It's made out of copper because copper is awesome at conducting, well, anything. But heat is what they care about here. But the copper is also why you want to use deionized/distilled water because tap water will cause corrosion inside the radiator after a while.

And as a fun fact, ultra pure distilled/deionized water does not conduct electricity.

Yeah that is in there on the kit 2 liters of destilled water also corrossion additive. Thanks for the tips Maringue.

[Balubish]

I think I will go with this coolant. But cause its gonna be my first watercooling loop so I will go with clear water with dye for a while just too test it for some time if leaks will form then I will add this but the Blue one that Mayhems have done.

[Balubish]

Order sent Only $634 yet with the parts without the GPU cooler (about $100 extra for that).

This CPU Block: "XSPC RayStorm CPU Intel"


This Radiator: The one too the right standing "Alphacool NexXxoS Monsta 240mm with 2 fans package Noiseblocker NB-eLoop B12-3 Bionic 1900U/min"

The fans but blue and transparent:


Pump w/ pumptop that are most recommended over the net. "Alphacool VPP655 - G1/4 with Alphacool D5 HF Top"


This waterholder: "Phobya balancer 250 black nickel"


And are going with this EK Universal GPU Block and passive mem chip cooling blocks "Thermosphere Talked too EK today and they said it would work fine. Hope they are right. And this block adds around $100bucks + $634 so yeah damn it cost alot. But hopefully I can have this shit for many years.


Wish me luck guys, I kinda need it.

[Ron Swansons Stache]

Good lord, good luck man..

[Balubish]

Good lord, good luck man..

[Balubish]

I have changed my mind regarding the GPU block. Instead of using a universal GPU block I think I will try to sell the card instead for someone that dont want to use it for a watercooling and have a great gaming card.
Its too bad cause im really happy with it. But I feel like a full cover block is probably the best way too go.

But some good news I ordered one of these though, I forgot that when I ordered the big one.


So I can check the watertemp. Yeah Im n3rd so what!

[CR33D]

Do you game 1440p or 120+hz? I don't know how worth custom loops are on just 1080p/60hz

[Balubish]

Do you game 1440p or 120+hz? I don't know how worth custom loops are on just 1080p/60hz

Non yet, this is a build for the future. I game 1080p, im still waiting for 4K too go mainestream. And ur wrong, custom loops are still worth it. You get a colder PC, higher overclock and more silent pc. Aircooling can be loud.

And my H80i is the best thing I ever bought, but high overclock the fans can get quite loud. I want a complete gaming, rendering or whatev pc with the highest possible overclock and still silent.

Resolution or Hz have nothing too do with watercooling my good sir Gaming yes.

[Balubish]

Update! Will add an unboxing video of all the parts I bought and they arrived today. And yeah with my bad engrish.
And I will start the build on friday probably and today im preparing to flush the radiator and hopefully have a functional pump too also. A good way to test it out I guess. Just waiting for the video can upload so I can start flush it.
Here are the radiator spot I have planned for it and also why. You can see the regular 120mm fan on top of it. It doesnt really fit in my case and.

Flushing the radiator and testing the pump.

And here is a pic of the small flushing loop just waiting for my power supply that im currently using and water to start it. And this is probably "still not sure yet" how I will mount the res directly too the pump top but not sure if that gonna work in the case at all.

[CR33D]

I was always nervous about leakage if I had a Custom Loop. I'll probably buy a CLC pretty soon when I get back from camp. Any recomendations? I'm looking at some of Corsair's stuff~ and maybe a Noctua if I decide I want air cooling.

[Balubish]

I was always nervous about leakage if I had a Custom Loop. I'll probably buy a CLC pretty soon when I get back from camp. Any recomendations? I'm looking at some of Corsair's stuff~ and maybe a Noctua if I decide I want air cooling.

I have at this moment and have run it for a year a H80i and are super happy with it. But cause im overclocking alot it would be better with a H100i for example. More cooling with 240rad and slower fans speeds. So if you can fit a 240rad in your case I recomend that. Not sure if there is newer model of H100i but that would work nice. And sure Noctua are a great choice too. If your not gonna overclock alot your fine with a Noctua. But if you wanna ramp up the speed even more I recommend a CLC over a Noctua air. Cause they are good but they have a limit. So does watercooling but alot further up.

Well i did test the pump just tightening the fittings and hoses with my fingers and didnt leak. So basicly you cant get too leak if you arent a really clumsy person though But the hose I bought are soft really soft so when u tighten the compression fitting over it its basicly sealing it very easy and all fittings that I bought think most have O-rings. So to fail on that is basicly not gonna happen. And you should always leak test for an our or 24, depends on how u wanna test it. "Edit" I tested it for 5 min and no leaks!
And to do so you always disconnect all the power connections on the motherboard. And use distilled water that dont conduct electricity. It will over time thought but if you change the water 2 times every year you would be fine if it started leaking, but I think I can only start leaking if a part gets broken for some reason. Seen some clips of ppl screwing down the block wrong and tighten it in a corner first and then next and that makes some block flex and basicly you might break the block seal.
But I will follow the manual for all the things im unsure of and probably wont have any problems. And I will fo sho only leak test for about 15 minutes cause I want that shit running

[Balubish]

Update: Build so far. More stuff left though And Cr33d I tested it for about 5minutes so if you dont see a leak in the first hour or so the chance of it leaking is very low. And I only screwed down all fittings by hand. I probably will order Universal GPU block, cant hold myself back wanna try it too. And I need a fan controller. Those radiator fans are running at 2200rpm and sound like wind tunnel. Not much fan noise but alot of wind noise.

[Balubish]

Latest update.

[Balubish]

So right now I ordered this: I know I said I wasnt sure but fuck it!

I cant wait to save up money to buy another card and buy a full cover block. And I tested some Battlefield 4. And the water temp was in the high 30C degrees and dont want that, cause all the warm air from the graphics card is heating up the radiator and the complete waterloop so. Hopefully i will get it to work and also add 2 80mm fans to the card "just if" the VRams etc gets overheated. If I get it to work it will get super quiet. Cause on the card there is now three 70mm fans I think and they get loud when gaming. No wonder cause the card is filling the case with 60-70c degrees of warm air. I hope I can end that shit

[CR33D]

hnnggggg

You better take a video of that being filled. It's so sexy~_~

[Balubish]

hnnggggg

You better take a video of that being filled. It's so sexy~_~

hnnnggggg? Not sure what this mean but who am I to ask stupid questions lol

Yeah I will probably add a video on that too and test it out. Only sad thing is that they build the cards upside down to help out with dust etc so it will be facing down But yeah its a good looking universal block indeed.

[Balubish]

And now I lowered the pump to the lowest setting from 4800rpm too 1800rpm. Test how it behaves. Looks fine for the moment. It actually one degree lower than the MB, at idle 28C and MB 29. Never seen that before. But kinda make sense I guess, cause the water going trough the rad slower and can be cooled off more until it exit the rad. I did set the CPU at 4.7GHz now though and also lowered the core voltage about. 0.3volts can probably go lower. Don't know why the automatic overclock did set the voltage so high if it didnt need to be. Im still learning.

[Balubish]

So the day after I built my own loop I gave my Corsair H80i to my brother and he have AMD socket on his, think he have FX8350 CPU. I helped him build it and we did use the Original cooler that comes with the CPU.
And as some of you guys may know the socket is different to intel, mainly more crap on AMD. They have the pins on the CPU and you lock them down on the socket. So this shit happened when we removed the stock cooler.
Ripped the CPU out of the socket even though it was locked down. CRAP!



The thermal paste was like glue and even though the CPU block was only supposed to come off It ripped off the CPU even when it was locked down. Gladly the CPU was not broken but I have heard ppl ripping pins of the CPU thanks to that and then you can throw it away. I needed a thermal paste remover that eats up the thermal paste just to get it off the block. It was basicly glued down on it. CRAP!
But thankfully it still works fine and he got really low temps on his AMD with the H80i so hes very happy now that his pc is now so quiet.


Other news on my watercooling loop though. The GPU block has arrived and gonna pick it up after work. Bad news I messed up the order and only ordered a package of 10 mem chip passive cooler blocks.
But what I can see on the GPU It have 12 mem chips so gotta look closer on it and see If I need to order more blocks for them.

Edit: I might not need mem chip cooling on for the card, only need a fan for the power delivery items as I looked on this pretty new hybrid cooler and they are not using it. So I guess my cooling will look like this sort of.

[Balubish]

Well my plan have kinda failed to water cool a Gigabyte card. It still works kinda and GPU Core is cool as the rest of the loop but the memmory and maybe somthing else is getting really hot. So I will still try to find out what parts that is getting way too hot and cool them down. And frankly I wanna be finished with my modding and all so I just took the personal decision to get finished with it and have now a payment plan on one of this.



So from $650 watercooling loop and a $100 on a failed cooling block on the Gigabyte until i get it to work properly and maybe a destroyed card if I cant fix it. And another $700 on a graphics card with preinstalled waterblock. Just to get this finished. Damnit!

So one sucky thing the card is expensive, good part I probably wont have to upgrade my PC for 5 Years and really hope that is the case here.

Edit: Just counted how much I have spent on the PC including building it last 1,5 year, almost $4000 bucks, holyshit, money flies.

[Balubish]

VLog update on the build. Will try to upload as fast as I can. My UL connection sucks ass so, but here are 2 more updates.

[Balubish]

Well Creed, here you have it, kinda bad angle but I wanted to get more of it in picture when I filled it.

Filling the loop with the Gigabyte R9 280X and with a Universal GPU block.

Testing my GPU build:

[Balubish]

THE BUILD IS DOOOONNNNEEEEE!!! THE AQUA!!!






Now I just still have some videos left to upload to the loop build VLOG or what it should be called. But I coulnd't hold back not showing you guys how it looks right now And yes it was worth it.
Latest video will be when Im mixing with the UV Blue and Aurora.

[Someone Special]

Okee I have two questions for ya.

First: how much money have you put into the PC so far?
Second: how long are you expecting the computer to hold up?

He's put several thousand dollars into it I think.

[Balubish]

Okee I have two questions for ya.

First: how much money have you put into the PC so far?
Second: how long are you expecting the computer to hold up?

First: how much money have you put into the PC so far?
Custom Watercooling = About $700-750 with extra fans and dyes etc.
PC main parts = About $1500 Case, CPU, MB, Mem + $360 for an Gigabyte R9 280X that I might have destroyed. Still works, kinda
And recently a new graphicscard with waterblock preinstalled for $700

And this is my first watercooling loop ever bought and hope and plan to use it for many years. Hopefully on next build to in the future.

So total is around $3300-3500

Not included is 2pcs SSD's, 1pcs Raptor and 2pcs regular drives and a monitor and a PSU that I already had.

Second: how long are you expecting the computer to hold up?
Atleast for 5-7 years and some minor upgrades with with maybe a bigger harddrive and such.
And I probably can use it long time over that. Just adding another graphics card and a PSU then when it starts to get to slow. But probably not. By then I hope 4K have become mainstream and affordable with graphicscard and monitor and will then upgrade to that I think. Who knows, its long time away

My last PC I built 2006 that I had to last year, could still play Diablo3 and TF2 on max settngs last year. And that hold up very long. And that one I didnt even overclock at all.

[Balubish]

So total is around $3300-3500

One day I'll have that kind of money! at least I hope

Atleast for 5-7 years and some minor upgrades

That sounds like a good deal for the money getting put in


Well keep in mind also I have both saved up money for a year and and started the build in April last year, so i didnt buy all now. I just made the watercooling loop now and the graphics card became kinda a impulse buy because I really wanted to get finished with it.
Yeah I noticed around year 2000 that If I bought a pc prebuilt for say about $2000 bucks I could build it myself with the same main parts that makes the same performance, mainboard, graphics card, cpu and all that for about $1200 instead and they had the same performance. If you buy a PC prebuilt you pay alot for nothing. Do it yourself and you save alot.
And yeah this is the most expensive build I have ever done. But I hope as I said, I hope I can have the radiator etc for a long time even after this pc.

"However, you mentioned 4k gaming, how expensive is it currently?"

Currently what I've seen you basicly need 2 or 3xGTX titans with 4GB each $1000 bucks each so say $3000 just for graphics cards. Or I've seen dual 295X in QuadFire.
But the FPS arent that impressive at all at 4K. Several games that are out now dont even come up at 60fps with that setup. So 3000 bucks for cards, then you need the rest of a PC too and a quite expensive 60fps 4K monitor added too that. So I guess to make a playable 4K gaming setup with all the games out there today u need to spend atleast $5000 on the PC only and that might just be enough for playing at high settings a few years at most. My build is mainly for 1920x1080p with all settings at max, max AA etc. Can probably run it fine at 2560X1440p too. I have even forced the graphics card to run at max AA all the time and noticed and TF2/Diablo 3 for example looked better even though I had max settings on ingame. And performance wise im not done testing though.
But a small example Bioshock Infinite at highest settings the fps are at 120-240fps all the time. It cant lag at all. TF2 jumping between 150-300fps that is the roof and the graphics card only works at 25-35% load then.

Note: Yes its alot of money. But I work and have it as a hobby and have saved up some money of it. And say that it works fine for 6-7 years that I think it will, its about $500-600 a year. So this is the way to do it for me. And im fine by spending alot of money at once and then have a good performance pc over a long time instead. And I know not everybody can do it but this is my way and how I do it
I have friends that bought small cheap upgrades but had to do it then several times over the same time period say 2-3 graphics cards etc. And sure its a basicly how much you can afford and how much you wanna spend really. As my hobby and money wise this is the money I spend on it and have great performance over long time period.

[Balubish]

So mixing the Mayhems Clear UV Blue dye and Mayhems Aurora Blue Nebula. First up, UV dye to get that nice blue glow just like the Lepa Fan in the back. And after the middle im adding the Mayhems Aurora Nebula Blue with particle effects.
Have to add a led into the res to highlight it but I show in the video how it looks when you see it with lights on it. So will order a top plug with led mounting to highlight the nebula effect in the res. Will do a video about that too.
Let me know what you think guys. Best regards Balubish

[Balubish]

Hello again guys! Will add some benchmarks both stock and OC and temp especially on a watercooled graficscard. This cause its an 780 so it produce quite alot of heat I guess in general.
First up Stock settings. Temp are seen in the right upper corner.
Heaven Benchmark Stock

Valley Benchmark Stock

[Balubish]

So I did a decibel test on my rig just now, had 2 apps on my phone so cant trust it completely.
But the noise lvl I got was between 35db-40db. And thanks to the water and fans that are locked at the same speed always it doesnt change.
And basicly the only thing I hear is wind, cant hear the pump or fans just wind sound thru the radiator. Just what I was looking for when I built the watercooling loop.

Comparison:
Whisper Quiet Library at 30dB
Normal conversation at 60-65dB

Edit: I can hear a fly fart...

[Balubish]

Do you game 1440p or 120+hz? I don't know how worth custom loops are on just 1080p/60hz

Im just adding this for your comment Cr33d and others to show how hard it is to come up at 120+fps at 1920x1080p on certain games if you are a graphics fr34k like me
Note that I spent $700 dollars on a GPU. But I do think I will upgrade to a 1440p monitor next year with G-Sync, maybe If not 4K and play on lower detail settings in games, not sure.

Here is Crysis 3 with maxed out settings and an FPS counter at 1920x1080p, not that impressive really.

And just to give an comparisson how the power of the GPU is different between game engines and graphics quality. Here is Bioshock Infinite maxed out with alot better performance. I can say this, the only game I had those frames on last years have been TF2 but still Bioshock gave me an headache for some reason.

[Balubish]

Testing UV Green/Yellow, hard to photo it glowing green but here is a pic, next up pink.

The closeup and the brighter green in the pump is how the loop looks under UV. Need to buy more UV light, thinking of cathodes.

[Balubish]

So a little update on some things. As many of you already know I bought a GPU only block for my Gigabyte R9 280X. And Gigabyte those fuckers made me do it "basicly" cause the have a custom pcb.
So full cover waterblocks dont fit those so if you planning on making a watercooling loop keep in mind what brand and card you have. I had the card before I started with the loop so that is kinda why I had it and otherwise I could plan it better. So this is how far I have come yet on my "planning" So hopefully this will be informative to ppl that have Gigabyte cards. Will test it with the fans mounted on day in the future and see how it works.
Just gotta buy some more mem chip cooling.

And here I tested some Mayhems dyes just to how it looks with a real black light. What color would you choose? I did go poison green this time to see how it looks.

Example pic: and the hoses are UV blue reactive so need to buy new one of those to get that green there too. I did go with blue theme so it was on purpose but to test other colors I gotta switch them to clear.



Did reroute the hoses some and made a empty part in the bottom instead and will upload a video of that when I mess around with that too.

[Balubish]

Testing Pink Dye now. This is basicly one of the perks of watercooling that I think is cool. You can in an easy way change ur PC looks with just changing the color of the loop.
Im not a pro modder and this is the most I've modded a case in general but this is a + with watercooling in my opinion. Let me know what you think about this scheme.
Also its hard photo it with a mobile "Crap" camera looks better in real life. And took 2 flushes of the system completely to get the most of that green stuff out, damn that shit get stuck everywere. Lesson to myself, Green = alot of flushing water, 2-3 times completely.

[Balubish]

I've ordered some new fans yesterday evening, watched alot of videos with CM JetFlo fans.
1st part why I want them is they have high pressure, so perfect for radiator. 2nd part they look awesome. 3rd part is they have a good rpm speed range between 800-2200rpm so I can set them up for, looks/light/sound in my pc. I have tested some different fans over time. Arctic/Corsair/Antec/Lepa/Noise Blocker. The Arctic ones are silent but no pressure. Corsair have pressure and high airflow but on certain speed they sound like small chainsaw, I think its because they have a big engine and different bearing. So the quality on them are great and probably will go for ever but to loud for my taste. Antec have no pressure but also silent and are only good as a case fan or in the case to move some air around or as a passive intake fan. Same is for the Arctic ones. I have used them for suction on top of the radiator I guess they worked for that but didnt have the pressure like for example the Corsair ones have. So hopefully these from Cooler Master will deliver. I have NB-E loop as pull now and they are great so my plan is switching them to the top as suction and the JetFlo's as push to both deliver good pressure through the rad and aslo so nice ambient light into the case.

Example video how they look in action on full speed and lower.

My next idea I got today. Modding the case so I can have a second monster rad. Cause? Why not! I looked around on the net for a modded Antec P280 case as I have and coulnt find any major mods for that.
I both want one cooler cause the OC CPU and GPU is cooled enough but I still think I can push down the temps with another rad. The Monsta rad I have is a 240mm and I will if I succeed i hope I can fit another one in the front of the case. Im new at modding cases and Im kinda getting intersted about the idea instead of buying a new case.

So this is an old pic on the case, but you have the drive cages and 5.25" in the top. The part where the drive cages are I use 3pcs 3.5" drives and on the top of that part 2pcs SSD's.
I tested on my lunchbreak if the drive holder are switchable and they were, so I can turn the whole cage upside down and I can still use them.
So I can do this 2 ways as I see it cause I really want to keep some of them.
In front of the case its 2 case fans putting some fresh air into the case with a fan filter so I know the space is right for another Monsta rad in the front "if" i remove the drive trays.
But I still want to keep them for my drives. So the options I have is either turn the whole shit upside down in case and remove the 5.25" trays completly to get the vertikal space I need for a second rad.
I have a broken DVD-RW in it, its not even plugged in. So all that space isnt used for anything.
And I have an external DVD writer I can take out when I need to install Windows or whatever, not often in any case though .
Second thing I can do is just cut the whole drive bay out and make a completly custom cage that fits all my drives and a second rad. And I have a chunk of clear 5mm acrylic window left as I have used as a case window. I could just cut out the parts I need 4 walls, glue some small bracket sliders for the drives so they have thier space in the top anyways into it and also make a fan grill for the drives when they are in the top just to suck out the HDD's heat out of there and 2 fan big hole in the bottom for the rad. So I will strip the front down after work to look more how to do it



So here is a good example how it can look and how little space I actually need or the drives in general. And acrylic is fairly easy to work with.
So I can make the mounting for the drives and the rad in 2 seperate pieces too. Mount the drive part in the top with fan and make a box or what the easiest way to make some kind of holding spot for the rad and some fans in the bottom part.

Or I could just order this cage for the drives and im done with that and just have to do the rad thing by myself

[Balubish]

I just found a similar mod that im going to do kinda, when payday I will also order sleeved extension cables for the 24pin and GPU power.

[Mike808]

Noice

[Balubish]

Thanks Mike!

And I just uploaded a new video how air bubbles can form in a waterloop. Basicly this isnt that normal I think, but I have the pump on the slowest speed and its really tricky to fill the whole radiator with water even on the highest speed.
And now and then while gaming some air gets lose and going down to the reservoir, but even though its an swirl wall between inlet and outlet the air is going around it and down the vacuum basicly getting sucked down towards the pump again.
And thats because of steady flow rate and low flow rate of water. If I ramp the pump up the bubble will be sucked down to the pump and then back to the radiator.

So here is a quite big air bubble in my system that grows over time.

[Balubish]

So this is the end for the Gigabyte R9 280X project. Core only block and stock fans to cool the Vram and power delivery.

If you dont want to see the video of me testing this out and steps I made I will do a short conclusion here.

I had 10 mem chip cooling blocks, 12 memchips on the card, so 2 is left out, but didnt matter. In general the build works fine and a cool core. I maxed out at 48c degrees on the core.
So very usefull, for games like TF2 that dont take that much horsepower your fine running the fans at around 50% and then its basicly silent. But for games like Far Cry 4 that really strangle the GPU in performance
I felt more safe running it at around 70-75% fanspeed cause the power delivery gets really hot. I guess this problem can be solved buying a VRM cooler and then just have fan/fans running slow cooling the mem chips.
But im done with this and might use the card for another time in a HTPC or something.

If its the only solution and dont have a full cover block for your card, go for it, you will get a cooler system and hopefully more silent. But I do recommend a full cover block if you can choose it.

Nextup is a video I made yesterday with my own way of parallel watercooling loop, and it works weirdly enough.

[Balubish]

Parallel cooling config. It might be the first one made like this, I tried to look up on the net if it actually works.

Usally it looks like on the left picture, but I have out and in on the same side, I was unsure if it would work but it actually do really well. I only had to crank up the pump speed a bit to get higher flow rate. But other than that the temps acually seems cooler. Cause the cold water from the radiator goes to both the CPU and GPU at the same time. Before I had it going to the CPU first then down to the GPU, so it heats up a little bit before on the CPU. It technicly doesnt matter, but Im all for lower temps. And temp wise it makes sense really.




Re-routing video, took around 28min to do it, switch cards and switch fittings and hoses, and it did require 2 more fittings than before.

Im adding this pic cause for some reason the darker ones in the end got fucked up after I compressed the video. :S

[Balubish]

I relized yesterday I can make easy color swap on my system basicly with my new system. And sure I already knew and loved that part about watercooling from the beginning.
But here is an example for you guys how you can do that.

[Balubish]

So this is a noobtip for you guys that might plan buying and building ur own loop in the future.
Explaining how to be careful with positive pressure. Most builds have a radiator up top in the case, I even have it higher and big ass one too. It containst about 0,5liters of water.
And that beeing above the reservoir can be problematic depending on were you have the return to it.

And I had poison green/yellow in the loop, flushed out the green with pink dyed water and it became yellow, wtf is up with that???

[Balubish]

DIY cleaning your Ho_se tip.

[L0wsound]

DIY cleaning your Ho_se tip.

how bout pipe cleaners?

[Balubish]

DIY cleaning your Ho_se tip.

how bout pipe cleaners?

Yeah probaly soft ones that dont scratch the inside of the tubes would work fine. But can be tricky if you have several bends on one pipe though.

[Balubish]

Hello World!
Im in the planning stage of trying out hardline tubing for the first time. Why? Cause it looks fuckin awesome and I want to learn, cause yeah, im a nerd.
Also probably gonna go with PETG tubing instead of acrylic tubing.



This first plan is an overkill one. Yellow is the loop, Green boxes are valves to empty the loop and also added another 120mm radiator.
The blue lines are for empty the loop as much as it is possible. Problem is you cant really empty the CPU loop and I kinda have to figure out another plan on that I guess but it would look cool as hell I think.



And here is the simple route also with a 120mm rad in the back. This way is much cheaper than the first one and I can empty the loop completetly.
Blue and left red from the 120mm rad is for empty the loop.
Personally if I dont solve how to empty the CPU on the first I will probably go with this one but still wanted to hear what you guys think.

[Balubish]

So its that time of the year. Upgrading my PC a bit. And yes its watercooling related. I want to get lower watertemps.
Even now the late part of summer the water temp is around 30-31c degrees when idle thanks to all OC when the room temp is around 25c.

How to solve this is with more radiators. Even though I bought a 120mm rad it should help some. One 120mm is enough to cool a AMD R9 Fury X so should lower the temps a bit.
I will put this one in the back of the case. Almost all cases have a 120mm fan spot on the back of it. Main reason I didnt go with another monsta rad is cause it wouldnt fit. Plain and simple why.

This is what I've ordered.
EKWB EK-CoolStream PE 120 Radiator


And a fan that I know work well, already have 2 of these.
Cooler Master Jetflow


And two of these just in case I need to route it differently.
EKWB EK-AF Adapter 90° G1/4 BK Fitting


So upgrading stepwise is adding up a few bucks on the watercooling total cost. No wonders there right
So I have alrady bought 2 Jetflo fans before and now a 3rd and rad and 2 fittings I am a bit over $750-800 on the watercooling.
O yeah while typing this I remember i bought a fancontroller of my working college. So more closely $800 for watercooling only.
Just these 3 parts cost $92 btw.

Will post a video of on performance cooling boost I get from it.

Best regards Balubish

[Balubish]

Now in the system. Still need to do some changes though. It will come in a video explaining the problem.





I was also wondering if I could mod the GPU light to blue, I cannot.
I opened it up while i had the card removed and there was a big block of frosted acrylic behind it and the there was a red led mounted on the GPU board I think.
So that was a no no. :S I was hoping it was only a plastic colored sheet but, fail on that part.
So are stuck with red.

[Balubish]

So my UV LED strip from Phobya broke maybe 2-3 months after I mounted them in my case. Now I bought 5Meters raw UV Led strip and have made my own.
So when one fail and light dims out I can toss that fucker away and insert a new one.

Im really surprised how bright these were as you can see in the bottom part where the led is really close to the hose and almost becomes pure white glowing.
I thought the ones I bought from Phobya would be as bright and I thought ok this is how it should be.
In these pics I have tested with maybe 50cm strip, but are pretty sure 10cm would be enough to light up what you want.

Also perfect its all 12V so you can just cut the length you want and put some cables on it.
Another great thing there is silicone covering the leds and other parts so it cant short out in your case aswell. Pretty neat.

The hoses I have had from start react blue to UV light. So as you can see I tested with Pink UV dye and the reservoir stays pink and hoses stay blue. Pretty neat combo.
Note: The camera makes it glow a bit more than it is.


If you are interested pimping ur PC with similar go with the models I've bought. SMD 5050 LEDS. Dont need much and really bright.
Link to how they look so you dont get scammed. http://www.flexfireleds.com/pages/Comparison-between-3528-LEDs-and-5050-LEDs.html
And the 5050 have actually 3 points on each led that light up.

[Balubish]

Looks like watercooling is becoming more and more mainstream. Pretty neat and cool, get it cool hue hue hue.
Pretty cool if you use several cards or whatever and even if one pump fails it will still keep going.

[Balubish]

Really nice All-In-One watercooling. And yes, I can agree cause I have noiseblocker fans aswell, best rad fans you can buy.

[Balubish]

So I made a video the other day showing off Mayhems Aurora Silver Booster. If you have seen my last watercooling build video you seen when I've used the Aurora before.
Mayhems Aurora makes you see the waterflow in reservoir, cooling blocks and hoses for example, and it looks so damn cool.
They sell a few premixed ones. But with Silver Booster you can basicly add the effect to your own mixed color using for example Mayhems dyes.
I have UV pink in this one just to make a test. I will do few more colors and test just to see how it looks.

If you gonna try this urself, read the notice and check their steps for best result. And it will differ depending on how ur loop is routed aswell.
Mine is actually to restricted as it is so will probably remove my newest small radiator for the other tests.

[L0wsound]

That's pretty rad

I wonder if it's actual Silver in it - would make sense for heat transfer.

[Balubish]

So I have my eye on my new GPU so this will be my next baby when I get my damn tax return and upgrade.

I was thinking of getting a regular card and install the block myself but I dont see the point cause this baby looks good already and preinstalled and higher stock OC than the others probably.
One key different that is also good is that if the card breaks its easier to get insurance cause I havent installed the block. But usually nothing happens.
But its always a good thing to be on the safe side I guess. And you have dual 8 connectors when stock GTX 1080 only has one 8 pin, which means more steady power and might actually be able
to OC even higher than stock. Keep in mind the Founders Edition with one 8 pin is able to OC without additional voltage which is locked on that all the way up to 2.1GHz and around 11GHz on the mem.

Not sure if it will be OC more with dual 8 pins but I hope for sure The best would be around 2.4-2.5GHz than im solid for many years.



Getting into the 4K master race and been testing some old games aswell OC the shit out of my old card.

It has been a good gaming friend for a couple of years now and beeing the nerd I am I pre bought my 4K monitor and have been testing alot of games in 4K.
This baby manage to have a good stable OC at 1228MHz on the core and not so much on the mem though. But I still manage to OC enough to keep me above 30FPS in 4K on high settings on GTA V
and man does it look good. All games do. 4K era is here when you can have one card and hit 60fps on max settings.

Problem before were you needed like 2x$1000 dollar cards to keep it that high. And I have tested what games and whatnot I cant play at 4K since I got the monitor last week.
And yeah, theres no getting back now. I knew 4K would make it look more crispy and dont think it was this much. For example I tested an old racing game yesterday called Flatout Carnage.
Was hitting 100FPS @ 4K max settings with this GTX 780 and other games I also can play around that with max settings is Star Craft2, Diablo 3, TF2, Skyrim and so on.

Yes older games look more crispy aswell. As I noticed when I tried Flatout I could see leaves on the trees in distance while driving and before its more a blur and you know its leaves.
Sure some textures looks bad no argue there and on 4K you see them even more but its not enough to bother me.

I will do a 4K montage video of different things on my channel later but for now I cant, I cant record 4K on the card highest it can manage is 30fps at 1440p.
New card on the other hand will be able to record 4K and I hope 60fps with the new codec cooming out H.265. Right now I only managed to take some pictures in 4K with fraps while ingame.
Like this one in GTA V at medium settings, yes Medium It will even look better when I can play it on max. Got Damn!

Reason I only can play at Medium is mainly VRam, its only 3GB on the card
and at 4K that shit runs out fast and also if you exceed the mem in some games that require more the FPS dips alooot.
For example I cant even test play Dark Souls3 on 4K cause even on the lowest possible setting I get 16fps which is fucking terrible


Bonus, yes this you probably recognized. The animations in 4K in SC2 is rendered at 60fps and looks like a frikking animated movie which is insame.
This picture is from recording it at 1440p 30Fps which is the max for now.
Still looks pretty good even though its half resolution in the video feed.

[Balubish]

What the video title says.

[Balubish]

So a small update on some pre-planning and rebuild on my PC for you guys that are into watercooling.

First off my old case is from 2012 I think and is not even close to be super good for watercooling in the start and why I have my fatass 240 rad outisde ontop of the case.
Personally i dont mind it at all and i think it looks kinda beefy, but thats it, one hole in the case so cant get a bit cooler water than that, even though its 80mm thick I still want to add another cooler.

With this massive cooler i now still manage to reach 60C° on the GPU and CPU well I can make it melt if I want too but also want to put down temps on that thanks to the hi OC.
Only way to solve it a I feel is the rad space and i have non in this case i have.

Here below you have the inside of the pre-ordered case (Not my stuff inside cause I dont have the case yet), instead of drives I can fit my 240x80mm rad in the front as intake and maybe run push/pull fans on it that will make the width inwards 86mm+50mm with the fans. That rad is the blue lines.

On the top of the case i plan buying another rad same fatass "monsta" version 86mm thick but this is wider and will get a 280 rad so I can use 2x140mm fans. Problem with the case though is that its beveled so I need to put both fans and rad outside of the case ontop of it but it will look cool as hell anyway, or as I want it too. There i have 2 choices really how to connect that up. Either i can parallel config the the rads
cause each rad has 3 inlet and 3 outlet ports so I could either the way I added the top rad just drill 2 holes and go parallel into the rad below in the front. Or instead of cutting up the case i can switch it and have it
backwards with fittings going outside of the case down and in through the PCI E lanes. Easier, less mess but more hoses/tubing required to connect that up. Im gonna have to think about how I will route that up.
I dont have the rad or the case yet so its no worries on that so far But I will have better and lower temps overall. So conclusion, 2x120mm fans or 4x120mm if i do push pull in front as intake fans.
As outtake i will have a single 120mm in the back, or seal that shit up with custom plate cause its not really needed to be hounest. And top of the case I will have atleast 2x140fans sucking out hot air and will be able to run those at slower speed which means less noise and still keep good airflow.

Grey lines is just a planning btw for airfilter on the inside just to collect dust and make it less more often to get unasemble it less often to easier remove dust in the rad.
The front of the case have filter both in the top and the bottom were the air get into the case so i dont have to bother about that part, but still some small particles will get through.

So what do you guys think of my plan? Will give me more cooling? Size of the new rad will add 324 x 144 x 86mm cooling area. O yeah, these rads have a empty plug in the bottom so I can easily add a empty valve in the bottom which will make it super easy to empty and change fluid that way through the bottom compartment.



Side planning depending on how much space I have in the case im not sure how or where I will fit the pump and reservoir yet, I might actually hang it horisontel on the top of the case or the bottom plate above the PSU. But yeah this case is much better for watercooling in general and you got that PSU cover area to hide stuff like a million miles of cables.

So I also got a modding idea to cover the pretty ugly motherboard. Doing my own custom MB cover in white plexi glass. The case I bought is white and black and rads and inside are black. So I thought why not make my own shroud for the the MB hiding all the shit that arent important, unusude PCI lanes etc. So this is kinda my idea like this guy did. But much simpler ofcourse.

[L0wsound]

My old mobo had something similar. I think it'd look pretty slick if you do it right..

[Balubish]

My old mobo had something similar. I think it'd look pretty slick if you do it right..

I probably gonna be lazy "if" i do it and just cut out a L shape covering the lower part of the MB if i do it. Take to much time to make all the certain cutouts.

[Balubish]

So this is my latest update since yesterday, took me around 5 hours to remove the parts from the old case and saw that this case overall is like a 6th/7th smaller than my old one which I didnt know.
I thought Midi towers were a standard. Little did I know. But starting to look badass after 5 hours of work, yes, still work to do on it. Got some kinks and lights to figure out.
Was so worried the pump had died cause it didnt start on the new build, found that I had a faulty power connector, some lights arent working either so have to fix that shit aswell.

I kinda like the look of the res hanging on the top horisontal but I might need to change that setup :/ Reason for that are that im getting to much vaccum in the tubes so the pump basicly suck the inside of the tubewalls together and will fuck with flowrate. But I benched it in Cinebench so 100% load @ 4.7GHz and hit 71C° so thats so different not having a GPU in ur loop tempwise. Before I hit like 85-90C°.

Next plan is when i get my card which is a regular fan GPU that blows out the hot air in the case. Im gonna check for temps on the GPU when I install it and see how good temps are, im worried I dont have enough airflow. Right now I only have 3 fans, but damn is it silent. I barely hear its on unless im sitting right next to it. Old case i had 8fans installed, got right now atleast alot of spare fans

So in about a month the waterblock will release for the card so will add custom one to that and then get another 86mm thick radiator above the case, sure it wont look as clean but I actually dont mind having a rad above the case, its airflow up there anyways so rather use the cooling space anyways. Its gonna be pretty good anyways, white and black build hardware and some accents.

So this is how the state of the build is right now, will add more info over time, this is just 2 pics i took just when I managed to fill the loop and start it up in windows.

[L0wsound]

I think we're gonna need a shot of the inside to criticize your cable management

[Balubish]

I think we're gonna need a shot of the inside to criticize your cable management

Hehe as i said im not finished yet, dont even have a graphics card in it, but im gonna pick that up after work, also have some rerouting to do But yeah im cooming back with that.
I can say this, its tight as fuck on the cable management of that you see, backside, well that can be discussed

[Balubish]

So i've been lazy as hell lately. New case build is kinda done, but I need to fix the watercooling and have havent done shit. Ive been so off lately I havent even been drunk.
This is how the build mainly will look like but its not done yet as I said. Everything with the routing didnt go as planned when I put the GPU in so
Main problem is that I thought Midi Tower was a size standard but this case is much smaller compare to my old Midi Tower so it got cramped but I will make it look good enough when its done.
Just need to get my lazy ass to do it eventually



Also I found a plastic glue that is insanely strong that im happy that I found. Plan is to make something cool with Acrylic or similar plastic but I havent tried transparency on it yet.
It looks clear before it dries but dont know how it looks if you glue to transparent parts together yet though.

Picture shows the breaking points of 2 harddrive cages I glued together and by bending it until it broke. Glue area didnt give a fuck. I also tested to glue 2 cds against eachother.
The parts that werent glued exploded when I bent it and the glue area didnt move at all.

[Balubish]

So I havent thought about this but we have sold these at work for couple of years and they are technicly for fuel. But why not water?
So I brought some fittings from home to double check if they fit and they do woohoo. Im gonna buy off 2 of these from work, sure they are more expensive than regular watercooling valves.
But man they look nice and industrial compared to the ones you can buy for watercooling. I had a similar plan maybe back a year ago but when i saw these im going for it again

Its funny that I havent thought of it before having them at work for so long Doh!




Also one on the tube comment yesterday on my camera was shit and needed an upgrade he said. Lol im using my fucking phone a Samsung S3 that is 3 years old.
If you cant see what I post ur fucking blind, I didnt say that but I wanted too

[L0wsound]

So I havent thought about this but we have sold these at work for couple of years and they are technicly for fuel. But why not water?

So are you going to be installing copper pipes and everything?

srsly though, the black looks cool. The brass looks CHEAP

[Balubish]

So I havent thought about this but we have sold these at work for couple of years and they are technicly for fuel. But why not water?

So are you going to be installing copper pipes and everything?

srsly though, the black looks cool. The brass looks CHEAP

Yes, each valve cost $40 bucks. Also there is a thing called something, hmm ay yes, paint.

[Balubish]

So for my new build kinda Im still looking for a waterblock and will be buying an EK waterblock. Costly as fuck though and the stock backplate doesnt seem to fit they say :/ So gotta buy that aswell.
Its not a cheap hobby but I knew that from start. Just the block and backplate will pitch me back $173bucks with taxes and shipping. But it will be worth it when i can afford it. Both looks and performance boost when I will be able to dare dial up the voltage to max and still keep nice temps.

This is the block im going for when I have the cash. My plan also when i well have the money and order it I will go over to hardline tubes aswell, just to add some cost even more lol. But damn it will look good.



I would have gone with this if case would support vertical sitting GPU's but it doesnt so full black both make sense and will look better.

[Balubish]

So a little update with some testing the glue I bought. Acrylic Cement. Im not 100% sure if its waterproof or not, so think at one point im gonna make a box and let it stand with water for a while.
Or screw that shit down. I might need to buy myself some good machines aswell. :S But still fun with a project.











Edit:
So after like 12 hours of drying I did some real testing on strenght, acrylic glue vs hammer.

[Balubish]

So I couldnt hold back anymore. Damnit! Payment plan for 12 months and $1100 less money over a year now.

So rendering time is killing me and my CPU is getting a bit to old for my standards. So what are these 1100 bucks you might wonder.

Parts:
ASUS ROG STRIX X99 GAMING - ATX / X99 + Mafia 3


Corsair Vengeance LPX White 32GB (4x8GB) DDR4 / 3200MHz / CL16 (CMK32GX4M4B3200C16W)


And last but most important. Intel Core i7-6800K - 12 Threads / 3.4Ghz (3.6Ghz Turbo) / 15MB / Socket 2011-3 Fuck yeah!


Good thing is my CPU waterblock works with it anyways.

[Balubish]

So here is the bad video of the build. Cause who knew 4K video was eating up the mem in ur phone in like 5min lol damn. And only have one pc that I was building lol so couldnt put the files over really.
But its something right? Also reason I like the video is because I contacted XSPC "CPU block manufacturer and they said it wouldnt fit CPU socket 2011-v3. In their faces
I guess they wanted to sell me a newer block

[Balubish]

It's almost been 3 years exactly since I went custom watercooling. Some of you may now my X99 platform burned and have issues getting the new parts cause stupid testers.

Anyways I thought this was a perfect time the other day and actually check how my CPU waterblock looked after all this time never opened up.
I've used basicly all kinds of cooling types on the market, regular water, Mayhems Pastelle = basicly a solid color fluid kinda like paint with super small particles in it and up to Mayhems Aurora that looks frikkin amazing when it comes to glare objects in the fluid so you can actually see the fluid moving in the loop.

So I made a video checking how the block looks and this is a thing you should watchout even with Closed loop systems aswell.
I had no cooling problems but could have gone that far over longer time.

Sidenote: If you have a block with nickel plating and steel block or whatever under it you shouldnt use steel wool to clean it.
I could do this on my block cause I knew it was a solid block of copper.

Also damn, 37.000 views on this post.

[Balubish]

So a planned update! I started this thing called watercooling in 2014, its time for a bit of an update. Well a plan for 2018.

System is upgraded a bit past 2 years. GTX 1080 (still aircooled) but gonna watercool that is the plan, to sqeeze out some more FPS in 4K atleast.
Games starts too look fucking fantastic now so not even 1080 cant handle more than 1440p 60fps in some games which is insane really.
CPU, MB and RAM was upgraded last year to an X99 system with a 6800K 6core 12threads with 32GB in Quad Channel 3200Mhz. Terrible chip luck for OC.
Max I can achieve is 4.2Ghz (23% OC if I dont remember wrong) on all 6cores. But Rendering at full load gives me a temp around 50C°, so I guess thats good though

So right now i have a super small case Phanteks P400 and the big ass monsta rad I have I cant even fit the reservoir in it. So a new Case is on my plan this year.

Thermaltake Core X71


Edit: I just found this nice radiator support print. Very nice options for watercooling.

I like the concept of a vertical GPU so you can see the fluid on a clear waterblock but im not 100% sure yet if im gonna go that route.
But I love the option there atleast. I basicly have the same size case now, if you remove the bottom compartment on this one.
So I wouldnt have any problems with this case o fit all my watercooling stuff inside it and maybe even add another rad.

Even the 240 Monsta rad has it limits too cool, its fine for high OC CPU and GPU but temps cant get pretty high when you run both at full blast so the option to upgrade to a second rad at one point would be nice.
I have ordered a fillport as a nice option and ordered new O-ring, cause the ones I have are so old now I have cracks in them. So the system leaks slowly.
I cant see the leak but its so small I think the fans actually remove it with the airflow when its running anyway but I still want to switch out all the O-rings on all fittings to have that fresh. I also ordered some new hoses to remove the old foggy ones.

I might have enough next month to order the case but I will still plan to paint it white i think. Could be a bit of work but I think its kinda clean as a white case in general and I have that now. I will also paint the inside white aswell and the lights inside the case will glow up with it.

Waterblock I have planned so far will be this EK one.

Its nice with a clean small case that just fits all ur stuff, but they are a bitch for airflow and working with and that is the main reason why Im going with this upgrade. Im gonna keep posting the updates when I have all my stuff

Edit: So I thought the case might actually be too high for the CPU power connectors and need 1x8pin + 1x4pin 12V to the CPU. So long overdue Im gonna get extensioncables for that aswell + make it look better at the same time.

So a nice kit with ur basic needs for 50€. So not to bad, included with combs on them and a few extra ones.

/Balubish

[-Real-PeopledMage]

Those parts are pretty great to get some high quality settings on certain games.
GL on that 2018 plan there!

[Balubish]

Those parts are pretty great to get some high quality settings on certain games.
GL on that 2018 plan there!

Well I hope to be able to squeeze out maybe 5fps more in 4K, and that might help go over in some games from 1440p to 4K 60fps And it looks fantastic hopefully
Thank you.